Tuesday, December 08, 2009

100 British soldiers killed in one year – for Afghanistan

Looking at this sea of faces, one cannot but wonder at the grief of the families of the fallen; the widows who have had their hearts ripped apart with grief; the children who will grow up without fathers; the eternal loss to the world of their love, their vibrancy, their humanity.

The 100th soldier to die in the Afghanistan campaign is, we are told, a ‘grim milestone’, a ‘bloody milestone’, a ‘stark reminder’, a ‘dreaded landmark’, an ‘important moment’. He makes front-page headlines across the newspapers, and is the BBC’s lead story for the day.

The truth is that the 100th death is no less tragic than the 99th, and the 99th no less worth remembering than the 100th. And let us not forget the eminently forgettable numbers 47 and 29. Real people occupy those places, and they were no less loved and their lives promised no less hope than the (presently) unnamed soldier who died in the 100th place.

And that is just this year. The total British loss since 2001 is 237. Each gets his or her mention in Parliament before normal service swiftly resumes. We are assured by our political leaders that their thoughts (and occasionally prayers) are with the family and friends of the latest British fatality. But it is a transient thought, a momentary vision, an ephemeral eulogy to someone who gave their lives so that we might be free. The passing of Ivan Cameron was marked with greater heartfelt respect.

We repeat each year that we will remember them.

But we do not.

As the families and friends cry themselves to sleep and wander aimlessly as their empty rooms are filled with grief, the dead are but numbers and statistics to the politicians; pawns in politics of power play.

Of course, one should not judge the justness of a war by the magnitude of its fatalities. In historic terms, 237 British dead is but a drop in the ocean of the millions who died in two world wars. And they are now just numbers, statistics. Their names may be inscribed in marble or bronze on a monument, but our war memorials crumble just as memories fade.

We are told that the mission in Afghanistan is vital to our national security. We are assured that the Taliban regime must be taken out in order that Al Qaeda cannot use the country as a base from which to plot terrorist attacks against Britain.

If that is true, Cranmer does not quite understand why our forces are not in Pakistan.

42 Comments:

Knuckledragger said...

I fail to see how our presence in Afghanistan can prevent terrorist attacks when the government hasn't got a clue how to deal with the rapidly rising and implacably hostile Muslim population within our own borders.

The might of the Russian army, which was far larger and better equipped than our own, got chased out of Afghanistan. What made Bush and Blair think it would be different for them?

Why are we expending the lives of our military personnel to bolster a government returned to power by fraud?

I reckon that every UK politician who voted for this war should be issued basic equipment and sent to the front line. The survivors, if there are any, can then return and cogitate upon how quickly we should withdraw from this mess.

The Telegraph and Times over the last few feeks had some articles about the war, as well as about the suffering of and support of and ways to help injured soldiers and their loved ones; also some charities. If anyone knows of some more charities, could they list them?

I hope we will keep those serving and those who have served in our prayers, as well as any innocent civilians, and do our bit - directly or indirectly through charities, to honour those who chose to sign up and risk life and limb when the government sent or sends them to war. I also hope that they will be treated with respect and given the highest standard of equipment and support where they are lacking any. That too saves lives and injuries, and is the least the country can do, as well as be there for them when they get home.

Even if the will to go into Pakistan were there (though regrettably it is not), it has been rendered a numerical impossibility by New Labour. Such has been the extent of the systematic downsizing that personnel are stretched beyond belief. In 2007 there was an estimated 5,000 vacancies in dire need of filling and this has only worsened.

Our hands would be tied even if foreign policy goals were more coherently and recognisably concerned with defending the national interest.

Your Grace.At least the troops who died in the two World Wars were defending our own shores against would be World Emperors. Now all they fought & died for has been signed away by avaricious politicians, bent on their own hedonistic plans, men without national pride or patriotism. They may weep their crocodile tears for the sake of the press & tradition, but it rings hollow. Then it's on with the job in hand of selling off our country to the highest bidder.But Hey! We are all Europeans now so we'll scale down our forces, ready to become Euro Troops. How the mighty have fallen to the pen pushers in grey suits! May God & the dead forgive them.

The chinese have just bought the copper concession in afghanistan for 800 million dollars,with an option on another large deposit,the americans are still financing the taliban,rather a bloody regieme that is stable than the alternative,so long as they get the pipeline built,muslims leave the same towns as our soldier and fight them in afghanistan,spit on them when they are returned in coffins or march down the streets,are we any safer for protecting american and chinese businesses?

Whatever the Politicians say, they only have their own self interest and self preservation in mind.

The war in Iraq was entered on a spurious claim of WMD - which was found to be wrong. The war in Afghanistan commenced as a Peace Support Operation ? But has escalated as one to preserve the freedom of choice of the Afghan people against religious and cultural persecution by extremists.The after thought, is the preservation of UK homeland security.

Our troops know why they are there and believe in their mission. They want to see the country rebuilt and taking responsibility for its own security. They accept the risks they take - as part of their obligation to defend British Interests wherever they are, world wide. Politicians make the decisions that send the troops into harms way.

The troops do not want or need, sympathy they need understanding and support for their mission and role while they remain there.

Once we were committed, we cannot just walk away - we need to see it through to the end - whatever that is.

The truth about WMD may not reveal itself in our lifetimes. Read your history books; that's often the way it is. The jury is out. Bush and Blair may end looking like a couple of Einsteins. Who knows.

That said, the British impulse to fight in Afghanistan is puzzling as the UK is neck-deep in jihadis and has plenty to fight on its own shores. I believe in the special relationship between the UK and the US, but that may not serve the UK well. Maybe it's a way for your politicians to avoid the obvious; they'd have to start cracking down on the psychopaths in your midst in earnest--and half your countrymen are mindless Eloi. They'd have to fight them as well.

This Labour government does not link Britain's national security problems to its continuing stealth 'policy' of MASS IMMIGRATION; some of the main immigrant sources are countries with an Islamic jihad presence, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia. Immigration to the UK increased to 580,000 in 2008. End mass immigration, and among other things, thereby improve UK security.

Well there isn't another place in the world where crazy christian fundamental belief is more rife than in America, you would fit right into the bible belt. You could maybe even book yourself a place in the Westboro Baptist Church, you seem to share a few ideas anyway.

I just read it, it's the normal sort of nonsense that you usually spout. Didn't have to go to another site to get that, can just read your posts here.

The typical massive quote from someone else that you seem to think lends some weight to your views along with some misguided "logic" which has no real basis in logic at all finally all the points made lacking any real evidence whatsoever.

And in your closing sentence:

"Therefore, it is suggested, that Dawrwinism is not fundamentally an attack upon religion but an attack upon reason itself. It is irrational."

I would reply that this is nonsense as religion is based in faith. Faith has no basis in reason therefore your conclusion is a moot point.

The UK is no longer able to determine its border controls. Thanks to the Lisbon Treatythe EU is given power to set immigration policies for all 27 members. We can't end mass immigration unless we extricate ourselves from the EU.

I am old enough to remember, as a child, listening to Lyndon Johnson address the nation as he continued to increase the troop commitment of the US to Vietnam. Listening to President Obama's address at West Point was chilling, a true deja vue moment.

As a nation, we are still not recovered from Viet Nam.

My father's best friend Claude served with my father in the same Marine company on Saipan during that horrible battle of 1944. He was wounded multiple times, and always sent back to the fight. His older son was killed during a Viet-Cong 'truce' in 1969. Words fail to describe the agony endured by the family since that day, especially since 1974.

Claude always struggled with his wounds and experiences from 1944, but he had the consolation of knowing he had fought for a just cause, and that that just cause had prevailed. He had none of those consolations from the loss of his first-born son, sent to a war that Washington never intended to win.

We are at war. We did not declare it or seek it. It was thrust upon us. It needs to be won, and then we need to bring our people home.

I work with students born in 2001, and wonder if they and their friends will be posted to the reaches of Muslim Asia in the year 2020, because we refused to pursue peace through victory. If our leaders are not committed to victory, the troops should come home this week.

'oh for another Churchill to come to the fore'.Maybe if all the people who comment on blogs joined their local UKIP and started going round the houses, or giving out leaflets instead of expecting everyone else to do something, then something might happen. I've just looked at Littlejohn's column in the Mail and seen about 50 negative comments,and support for those comments in the form of 'green arrows'. These are obviously politically inspired attacks. Whatever you think of Littlejohn, he usually attacks the right targets and the Left doesn't like it and have combined to ridicule him. That kind of commitment to doing something, anything, for their 'cause'is the reason the Left has brought Britain to the state it is in. I know most of us would rather 'someone else' did 'something' but I don't think that's going to happen. And don't sit back and think Cameron is going to make it better because it seems to me he's part of the problem, because he's no different from any in the political class.

Perhaps we should just come to terms with the situation: afghanistan will never be a "success" for us, if it is, the word success then means an avoidance of failure. No country has ever succeeded, and we haven't even achieved much...ousting the Taliban from power few years ago only to see them securing 11 states out of the possible 34...the war (like you said) has become more or less paradoxical. Then again I guess Afghanistan is needed for strategic measures if we are preparing to attack Iran...

"The might of the Russian army, which was far larger and better equipped than our own, got chased out of Afghanistan."

As I remember, the only forces that didn't get their donkeys driven out of Afghanistan were Darius the Persian (6th C B.C.), but it was never a happy occupation.

Then along came Alexander (4th C B.C.), but he had no better luck than Darius.

5th C A.D.: The Hephthalites made a brief foray, but they weren't really interested in settling down and building malls.

13th C: Ghengis Khan (sometimes called "Builder of Deserts", from his experiments in Afghanistan)

18th C: Ahmad Shah takes over, making the modern Afghanistan, again characterized by revolting peasants.

19th C: Persians again attack, fail miserably.

1839: British invade; in 1842 only one man survives out of 28,000 Britishers.

1878: The British (an obstinate race) again invade. This time they have moderate success.

1880: The British leave; Afghanistan becomes Muslim.

1921: The British (slow learners) invade again, defeated again.

The rest is recent history - without much improvement.

I wish I could think of a good reason why any of us should be there (outside of "it's just something one does").

Nadia MdC: "... afghanistan will never be a "success" for us .."

Nor us, either (the U.S.). Somebody ought really to ask, "So then, what would happen if we all just struck our tents and went home?".

Life would be miserable for most Afghanis - those unfortunate enough to fall to the tender mercies of the Taliban - but then, if a people will not fight for themselves, why should others? (There have been news accounts of several thousand people fleeing an area because a few hundred Talibani showed up.)

Some commentators in america have noted that some of our servicemen are now on their fifth tour. Demanding this kind of commitment is inhumane.

If we are serious about this war then the public must make more of a commitment, a war tax should be levied to pay for it and draft must also be implemented to take pressure off our servicemen whom are on the frontline.

"But it was a shock to hear that the guys we were fighting against supported the same football clubs as us, and maybe even grew up on the same streets as us," the Telegraph newspaper quoted an unnamed British military official as saying.

For some time, Royal Air Force spy planes have picked up radio communication between Taliban fighters who speak with thick accents from Manchester, Birmingham, West Bromwich and Bradford, all cities with large populations of Muslims of South Asian origin.

Without pressing you to be indiscrete, but a question if I may. Are your oppressors and tormentors perchance of the same ilk as those that silenced the Canadian journalist Mark Steyn?

And ZZMike, Alexander the Great did quite well. The Greek city of Ay Knanum (possibly Alexandria) on the Oxus River survived 200 years in the Hindu Kush before being over-run. It must have seemed very permanent to its inhabitants until the end. We should not forget that the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land lasted 198 years before being destroyed by the Saracen. Again, a child may have been raised in perfect security there, travelled to Constantinople and wondered at the power and wealth before his eyes - at least until 1204 and the greatest catastrophe in Christendom, the Fourth Crusade.The Muslim now seeks to strangle the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople by denying the Orthodox Church eligible seminarians for the priesthood.

The work begun when Constantinople fell to the Turk in 1453 may be completed on our watch, to our eternal shame, if Christianity dies in the city of Constantine.

Knighthawk: "For some time, Royal Air Force spy planes have picked up radio communication between Taliban fighters who speak with thick accents from Manchester, Birmingham, West Bromwich and Bradford, all cities with large populations of Muslims of South Asian origin."Thanks for this. So they are fighting the serpent in our midst, after all.

God Bless and Keep them - and force our government to supplement their numbers by fighting the enemy on our home turf as well. The idea above, on conscription, might be a good move!!

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

Follow His Grace on

The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

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